


Hung Thin Between the Dark and Dark

by Anonymous



Category: Fake News FPF, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: 73rd Hunger Games, Alternate Universe - Dark, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Multi, Rebellion, Self-Medication, dystopic political hijinks, hunger game typical violence, i feel really odd about introducing the Reza Aslan tag to this archive, mention of past non-con, this will not end well
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-06-02
Packaged: 2017-12-07 17:16:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 14,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/751032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The prompt read "This isn't really a porn prompt but I didn't know where else to beg for a Hunger Games AU in which Jessica Williams is the latest tribute from a non-career District and Jon is her mentor." I kind of feel like I should apologize for the fill.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. For Old, Unhappy, Far-Off Things

Jessica Williams was seventeen years old when her name was called during the Reaping. The first thing that registers was the shock, and for a while that’s all she knows. She walked up on stage in a daze, her legs moving because some part of her knew that was what was expected of them, and when she asked for volunteers, she could barely hear the words over the howling in her ears.

There weren’t any volunteers. Of course there weren’t- Five wasn’t a Career district. It was her and Josh Gad whose names were called and it was her and Josh Gad who boarded the train after a flurry of goodbyes she couldn’t remember no matter how hard she tried- she barely remembered to have a token. Their representative- John Hodgeman- flitted around for a time, too enthusiastic and too oblivious and too… everything, from his owl-like eyes down to the pointed toes of his boots. He didn’t sit still all through dinner, reaching over everyone’s shoulders to grab at the food, and kept up a running commentary as they watched the reapings, grating on Jessica’s nerves until she wanted to scream.

He left them alone once the reaping in District 12 was over, and then it was just the seven of them: five victors and two tributes. Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Samantha Bee, Aasif Mandvi, and Olivia Munn; Josh Gad and Jessica Williams.

“Any advice?” Josh asked.

“Don’t puke,” Stephen blurted out. He’d been hitting the wine pretty heavily, and Jessica wasn’t sure he was talking to them, as opposed to himself.

“Actually, for tonight, that’s not terrible advice,” Sam said. “Keep your dinner down, and get some rest. That’s all you really need to do.”

“We’ll tell you the rest as it comes,” Jon said. “No one’s sizing you up yet, you can take it one step at a time until we get to the Capitol.”

That was not exactly comforting.

~*~

She ate at breakfast the next morning before they pulled into the Capitol, sitting across from Olivia, who was picking at a salad as opposed to say, the chocolate pancakes. Or the chocolate muffins. Or the hot chocolate. There wasn’t a lot of chocolate around the Williams’ place. They might be rich enough to avoid taking out tesserae but that didn’t mean they had a lot left over for luxuries.

“So, what’s on the agenda for today?” Jessica asked, smiling at Olivia.

“Today is about the parade,” Jon answered for her. Stephen’s head shot up at the mention of a parade, and the corners of Jon’s mouth twitched upwards in response. “The first thing that’ll happen is whatever the prep team decides needs to be done before your stylist sees you. I’ll be honest- it’ll suck and probably hurt a little. Just grit your teeth and let them do their jobs, okay? Once they’re finished, you’ll see your stylist: again, it’ll suck, but let them do their jobs. We’ve got a good team, and they’ll help you make an impression on potential sponsors. You should start thinking about what kind of strategies you can use, and who you want to mentor you. While you’re doing that, it’ll be our job to start making sure that the Capitol knows to root for you. So. Tell me about yourselves.”

Jessica froze up. After a moment of silence, Josh began speaking, babbling about his family and the prizes he’d won in school for speaking and-

She stopped listening. It just hit her that if she was going to live- and she really, really wanted to live- then Josh was going to have to die.

~*~

Her stylist left her with a mirror. She twirled in front of it for a moment, marveling.

“Sarah and I thought about it, and we decided that we’d pick one element- the sun for solar power, earth for geothermal power- for each tribute,” Reza had said. “And now that’s I’ve got a good look at you, I think you’re probably more of a sun person.”

She was. Yellow had been her color back home, and gold apparently looked even better on her. She twirled and twirled again, watching the skirt flare out into a thousand gossamer-thin strands of silk and reflect golden light out in all directions.

This dress was so _dope_.

“Ready to go?” Reza asked. “Your chariot is waiting!”

Chariot. Right.

She had to ride in District Five’s chariot with Josh.

The horses were a steely-blue color, with jet black manes and tails. There was a small fan installed in the chariot itself that kept her dress billowing out impressively. She spent the chariot ride looking straight ahead at District Four’s carriage: the crowd scared her, and she couldn’t deal with Josh just then.

She had the horrible feeling that she wasn’t going to be able to deal with Josh ever.

~*~

If there was one good thing about being a District Five tribute, it was this: District Five had the most victors- the most survivors- out of any non-career district. Most of them were still alive- and most of them had been from the past twenty-five years. Jon Stewart was the oldest surviving victor from the forty-eighth Games: Stephen Colbert had won the forty-ninth, Samantha Bee had won the fifty-third, Aasif Mandvi had won the fifty-ninth, and Olivia Munn had won the seventy-first, just two years before. There had been another victor, Craig Kilborn, from the first Quarter Quell, but he’d died between Stephen’s victory and the second Quarter Quell.

She thought about that all during dinner: about what it might mean, that distribution of victors. She didn’t eat very much. She was too busy thinking, and anyway, all the food she’d eaten settled heavily in her stomach, and it was all she could do to keep it there.

She dragged herself through the courses, forcing herself to eat something for appearances’ sake if nothing else. Reza kept shooting her worried looks, so she didn’t think that was actually successful- that might have something to do with the way she spent most of dinner chewing on her fingernails.

“You did just fine during the parade. You both looked great,” Jon said, after Jessica gave up on the pretense of eating. Josh hadn’t even bothered.

“They looked spectacular, thank you very much,” John- Oliver, not Hodgeman- said before turning to Jessica and admonishing “Don’t bite your nails, I worked hard on those!”

“I’ve been busy creating a buzz,” John- Hodgeman, not Oliver- cut in. “There’s already some talk of this year being another year without a Career champion- unofficially, of course.”

“Your training starts tomorrow,” Jon continued, as though no one else had spoken. “You’re going to have to choose a mentor, so-”

“You,” Jessica said.

Jon blinked, thrown by the interruption.

“I want you to mentor me,” Jessica clarified.

“I take you’ll be mentored separately then?” Jon asked.

“I, uh-” Josh floundered.

Jessica didn’t look at him. “Yes.”

“Works for me,” Jon agreed. “How about you Josh, who are you being mentored by?”

“Um-I- Aasif?”

Jessica kind of got the impression that she’d stolen his first choice out from under him. Well too bad- she refused to feel guilty about it.

~*~

They had some time after dinner, during which everyone else was busy watching the recap, so Jon brought her into the empty sitting room- the one with a fake fireplace filled with glowing pink flames rather than a television. She sat down on the sofa that looked hard and felt divine, and Jon sat in one of the armchairs opposite her.

“So how do you feel about killing people?” he asked.

Jessica hesitated. How the hell was she supposed to answer that?

“Honest answer,” Jon said seriously. “We can work with whatever you’ve got, but you have to be honest about it.”

“I don’t want to,” Jessica said. “I don’t want to kill anyone.”

“That’s just fine,” Jon said. “I didn’t want to either. None of us did- but we all wanted to live more than we wanted not to kill anyone. How about you?”

“I really, really don’t want to die,” Jessica said.

“Enough to kill someone,” Jon stressed.

“Yes-I,” She stopped, and thought about it, imagining what it would be like to actually kill someone. “I don’t know.”

“Are you thinking about whether or not you could shoot a gun at someone at a distance?” Jon asked.

“Stabbing, actually,” Jessica said. “No guns in the arena.”

Her hands were shaking. Jon’s eyes flicked down to where she had them bunched in the hem of her shirt, and back up to her face.

“Don’t do that,” Jon said. “There’s more than one way to skin a cat. Just- try and think about this, for a minute- if someone cornered you back home, and you thought they were going to kill you, would you be able to kill them?”

“Yes,” Jessica replied quickly.

“No, no, I want you to actually imagine doing it, and then tell me.”

She did. If she’d been walking home from her maintenance training- the center was clear on the other side of town, she normally took the tram, but sometimes she got hungry and spent her fare on a snack instead- and someone had attacked her, could she have picked up a broken bottle or something and attacked him right back? Could she have killed him?

How did you even kill someone? She had more than a vague idea of course- watching the Games was mandatory and all- but how hard did you have to hit someone on the head in order for them to die? How did you manage to stick someone between the ribs?

“I think I need to know more about killing people,” Jessica said. “I mean, I would try, but I’m not sure how I’d go about succeeding.”

Jon laughed.

“No, no- that’s good,” he said, at her offended look. “Okay, next question: what do you think about death traps?”

~*~

Reza apparently agreed with her about the gold, because her training suit had golden piping on all the seams that matched what nail polish she hadn’t already chewed off exactly.

She listened with half an ear as Atala ran through the rules about training: the long list of safety rules for each of the weapon’s stations, no fighting the other tributes, trainers are available to spar with- and then minute she was done, Jessica went straight to the snare station.

“See how you do with the snares,” Jon had advised her. “You were in maintenance training, so you’ve got to have some engineering skills. Spend today seeing how that translates into traps, and if you do well, then you can spend the next day on first aide.”

“What if I don’t do well?” Jessica had asked.

“Then you work on getting better the next day, and I’ll show you which body parts you need to aim for. But you’re going to need something impressive to show the Gamemakers, and unless you’ve got something up your sleeve you haven't told me about, snares are a good bet for you.”

So, snares it was. She was careful to keep her interests focused entirely on catching different types of game- once she’d managed one type of trap, she moved on to another, rather than having the trainer tell her how much bigger they needed to be to trap a human. She was pretty sure that she could figure that part out by herself. Probably.

She figured out what kind of snare she was going to build to impress the Gamemakers right before lunch: a complicated trap that would yank a fox or dog up in the air and then crush its head between two logs. It was messy, and messes were always in the Games’ highlights.

She studied Josh during lunch- he was moving around from table to table, talking to everyone who wasn’t at the Career table. The Careers themselves were sitting all in a bunch, talking and roughhousing, never allowing Josh out of their sight.

“Move along,” she told him, before he had the chance to sit down. He did so, looking hurt.

She did not want to be anywhere near Josh- not now, and certainly not during the Games.

~*~

“No matter what weapons you’ll find in the area, there’s really only three ways to kill someone with one,” Jon said that night after dinner. He’d only just barely closed the door and Jessica hadn’t even had a chance to sit down. She had the feeling that maybe she wasn’t supposed to sit down for this. “There’s stabbing, there’s slashing, and there’s bludgeoning.”

“What about strangling?” She asked. Aasif had done a lot of that- his was the first Game she remembered clearly- and the sound of people choking had given her nightmares that had stuck around for longer than the extra supplies his victory had secured for District Five.

“No weapon required. Wire works the best, as Aasif can tell you, but in all honesty, your shoelace will be able to work in a pinch- providing you want to garrote somebody. I don’t recommend it. It’s really the sort of thing you do if you can sneak up on somebody- which you can’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Jessica asked.

“It means you’ve bumped into that coffee table at least three times in past two days,” Jon said.

“Well-” Jessica began, and then bumped her shin into the coffee table. “Point taken!” she finished angrily.

Jon giggled into the back of his hand. Jessica did her best not to join in.

“Okay, okay. So- getting down to business- if you can’t get any weapons, try to find a stick. You can use that to parry someone who has a knife or a sword or something, and-”

“Go back to parrying,” Jessica told him.

He put her through her paces until she was just about ready to drop before ushering her back to her room. She fell into a deep sleep, woke up what felt like three minutes later, and went out to face day two of her training.

~*~

Josh was annoyingly chipper at breakfast: she spent the first part of her training ensuring that she knew how to tie knots and dress wounds- and which kinds of wounds she, or any other tribute, would be unlikely to recover from. Josh was annoyingly chipper at lunch, and had amassed a group of five kids into an alliance: Jessica spent the afternoon learning how to identify edible plants, and build shelters. Josh was mercifully silent during dinner: Jon tossed her a stick after dinner, and showed her how to hold one and use it for striking, blocking, and parrying.

“You know,” Jessica panted about an hour later. “You’re pretty fast for an old guy.”

“I have to keep up with you kids somehow,” Jon replied.

She learned a lot about how to defend herself, and end a fight quickly, followed by a quick round of ways she could avoid starting one, early on in the Games at least-“Remember, you’re taller than two-thirds of the other contestants, so feel free to use that to intimidate the competition. Just don’t try to intimidate anyone in ways that might make you trip over your own feet.”- and then he let her sit back down and left for a minute, to grab her a glass of water.

“Okay, so tomorrow is the big day: you’ve got to impress the Gamemakers. Now, I think at this point it’s safe to say that we want to market you as being some kind of confident. But that’s for the interview, and for the cameras in the arena. For the Gamemakers, you’re going to have to show that you’ve got the substance to go along with the flash. You can’t just be confident, or intimidating, even. You’ve got to be ruthless, or vicious.”

“Domineering,” Jessica added, because she has had clashes at school and maintenance training that have involved that word.

“If you can pull that off, great,” Jon said. “I’ll be sure to tell the sponsors that you’re domineering all over the place. But you have to be able to deliver.”

“I’ve got a plan,” Jessica assured him. “I’ve got a really tricky snare I can rig up for one of the dummies-”

“It’s not enough to ensnare someone, you have to kill them,” Jon interrupted. “There’ll be knives there- if you can ‘kill’ the dummy in a suitably-”

“The snare involves crushing the dummy’s head between two logs,” Jessica cut him off. “I’ve got it covered.”

Jon paused for a moment, considering. “That would work.”

“I have high hopes,” Jessica agreed.

“Well then, I think it’s time for bed,” Jon said. “I don’t know about you, but I’m pooped.”

~*~

The snare didn’t go off as planned, if only because the logs ended up colliding on the dummy’s crotch, rather than its head. There was an immediate reaction of groans and cringes from the Gamemakers, and remembering Jon’s advice, she took a knife from the supplies she’d used to assemble her trap, and slashed across the dummy’s throat. She was dismissed with a general air of appreciation, and managed to make it back to her room before having a total breakdown.

That was her plan. She was going to grab the backpack closest to her, find a place where she could be relatively safe, and start laying traps- not the complicated one she’d shown the Gamemakers, but simpler ones she could build quickly, and in large numbers.

“The main thing you have to worry about then is that either the Gamemakers or the Careers will decide that things are going too slow, and try to get you moving with a flood or a firestorm or something,” Jon had told her. “Keep a weapon with you, and some food and water if you can. Make sure you can move quickly if you have to.”

The strategy distanced her from killing people directly- from dealing with people directly at all, as a matter of fact. But she would have to check the traps. She would have to watch her back. It didn’t matter how isolated she tried to keep herself, only one of them could live, so they would come after her.

And she would trap them. And then she would have to kill them.

There was a knock on the door. “Jessica?” Jon called.

“Yeah?”

“They’re broadcasting the scores.”

“I’ll be out in a minute.”

She spent so time in the bathroom, making herself look as confident as possible. She couldn’t let Josh know how terrified she was. Then she left for the sitting room with the television, just in time to catch the District Two boy- Mo Roc- no, no, just the District Two boy. He’d gotten a nine. The girl got a ten. District Three wasn’t a career district, but both tributes scored a seven, which wasn’t bad. District Four got a nine, and an eight. District Five-

Josh got a six, which was just about above average. Not too shabby, but not enough to make him stand out. She got an eight, which was in the career range.

She wasn’t sure how she was supposed to feel about that.

“Oh, you might live,” Stephen said to her. Josh looked to Aasif for help.

“Don’t pay any attention to him. He got a four, and he made it,” Aasif advised.

“I, sir, was delib- delibritish- delitibl- I got that score on purpose,” Stephen slurred. “It was all part of the plan.”

“Sure,” Aasif, Sam, and Olivia said as one, drawing the word out until it almost didn’t sound like a word.

“Jon,” Stephen called plaintively.

“Be nice to Stephen in front of the actual kids, kids,” Jon said, not looking away from the screen. Jessica glanced back at it. The girl from District Twelve had gotten a four.

“And that’s all the mockingjay heard,” Sam said, shutting the television off on the anthem. “Now it’s time for all good little tributes to get to bed. We’ve got a big day tomorrow!”

“I thought we didn’t have anything tomorrow?” Josh asked.

“What do you mean, you don’t have anything,” John Hodgeman scoffed. “Your interview is the day after tomorrow! Neither of you are ready!”

“We’re also going help you act as pretty as Reza’s going to make you look,” Sam told her.

“But not too pretty!” Stephen interjected.

“You’re still the prettiest one in the room, Stephen” Jon said, clearly operating on automatic.

John Oliver coughed into his hand.

“That’s not what I meant,” Stephen said, with all the drunken dignity he could muster. “What I meant was-” His tone lapsed into whisper, even though the volume didn’t change “- people might get ideas.”

There was an extremely awkward silence.

“I can handle myself,” Jessica said.

“And we can handle you,” Aasif said quickly, clapping Josh on the shoulder. “Once Stephen’s sobered up, he’ll even give you tips on how to talk yourself up. Useful ones.”

Stephen made a rude noise and sank deeper into the couch.

“Bed,” Jon reminded them. “You’re going to want to be rested for this, believe me.”

~*~

Jessica was pretty sure that heels this high had been invented as a torture device. Either that, or Josh had switched out the real shoes she was supposed to be practicing in with these monstrosities in an effort to sabotage her by make her break her ankles clean off her legs.

“Okay, that’s enough,” Sam said, after the fifth time she’d tripped over the edge of the rug and nearly fallen flat on her face. “We’ll tell Reza to get you something that’s flat, or with traction, maybe. You’re tall enough to do without them.”

The next step is smiling, which she didn’t really think was something she needed lessons on. Then again, she hadn’t actually smiled at all the past few days, and her face felt out of practice.

“Try to keep it sweet,” Olivia advised her. “You can say something like ‘This thong took some getting used to, but I figure if Jon can do it, so can I’ and get away with it as long as you say it sweetly and with a smile.”

“Thank you for making me picture that,” Jessica said sweetly, smiling.

“Now you’ve got it.”

The next lesson was sitting, during which she almost fell asleep. The first year of maintenance train, when she’d been twelve, had basically involved sitting up straight and directing the drones to do all of the heavy work. She knew how to sit, and it didn’t take a lot for her to learn to sit with her legs crossed properly either.

“If you aren’t going to bother paying attention, we’re just going to have to throw you to Jon,” Sam threatened.

Jessica smiled, and stuck out her tongue.

They kept her right up until lunch, during which Sam told her told her to load up on protein. Then Jon took her into the sitting room.

“There are certain traits which sponsors look for,” he began without preamble. “And Stephen’s right- we could sell you as being sexy very easily. But that doesn’t mesh very well with either what the public saw on the chariot or what you showed the Gamemakers. So- we’ll try something else, something that works with both your audiences, and will also support your strategy without giving it away completely. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Good. So, who do you want to be?”

“Me. I mean, I can’t be me-me obviously, but I still want to be sort of me, you know? Like, I know I’m supposed to be domineering and all, and I can be, but I don’t want to go out there and have to act like I’m some big wrestling jock or something, I want to be me, and, you know, not dead. Does that make any sense?”

“I spent the whole morning talk to potential sponsors. That’s the most sensible thing I’ve heard all day,” Jon assured her. “And you’re right. You’re going to be locked in an arena where everyone wants to kill and parts of the landscape will also want to do you in. The less energy you have to spend on being something you aren’t the better. But for the interviews, we need to bring one trait of yours to the fore.”

There a moment of silence.

“Suggestions?” Jessica asked.

“You could go for aloof and superior,” Jon said. “You did get a high score, and you are planning on working alone.”

“As though anyone else could keep up with me,” Jessica said haughtily, affecting a Capitol accent and sticking her nose in the air.

“Okay, so another option is cocky,” Jon said, once he stopped laughing.

That one went better. Fierce went over well too. They eventually struck a balance between the two, and she managed to come up with enough things to say that sounded like she was both confident in herself, and willing to fight right now if there were any takers.

Then she planted her face in bed and went to sleep.

~*~

She spent most of that morning waiting for John to quit moaning over her nails. Wyatt had just about finished with her hair, and was sniping about Kristen over what she wasn’t waxing before he actually got started.

“This is more talk about my pubes than anyone should be having,” she told them.

“Eyes closed,” Wyatt said.

“My eyes are closed, that doesn’t mean my ears have stopped working,” Jessica replied.

Kristen muttered something about the sexual objectification of adolescents' bodies in television.

“Then why the hell are you working here, if you care so much you can’t stop talking about it?” Wyatt snapped.

There was a long, tense silence.

“If I open my eyes right now, is there going to be a bomb or something in here?” Jessica asked finally.

“No,” Wyatt told her. “So keep your eyes closed.”

She had to keep her eyes closed while she was putting her interview outfit on, which was awkward in the extreme. Her shoes had heels, she could tell- but they were low, clunky boot-heels, not stilettos. Her dress felt a bit tight, and fell to just below her knee. She felt Reza tug on the fabric, and slip her a pair of earrings, and a necklace, and then, _finally_ , she was allowed to open her eyes.

It was a dress alright, but the first thing she thought of was the suits the female escorts and Gamemakers wore. There wasn’t a lot of gold in it, and what gold there was had been toned down to a kind of Champaign color, and banished to the swirly embroidery that meandered around the dress, the wide belt around her waist, and the chain and settings of her jewelry. It was all pearl jewelry, the stud earrings, the pendant on the necklace, even her cufflinks and the pins holding her hair back away from her face. Everything else was lavender, even the shoes. It had subtle frills and ruffles down below the belt and lining the v-neck- but the cut of the skirt, the cuffs, and the wide collar folded down on her shoulders still made her think suit.

She didn’t look like she was going to fight in the Games. She looked like she was going to run them.

She didn’t know how she felt about that either.

“Well?” Reza asked.

Before she could try to come up with an answer, Jon burst in to the room, singing slightly off-key and dancing in a highly embarrassing fashion. Jessica watched, growing increasingly bewildered the longer things went on.

“How much do you want to bet that he kicks the chair into the dummy?” John asked Wyatt.

“No,” Wyatt replied, as Jon kicked the chair into the dummy.

“Don’t worry, he does this every year,” Kristen told her. “It’s his way of making sure you aren’t nervous.”

“Did it work?” Jon asked, dropping the song and dance routine mid-chorus.

“You know what?” Jessica said. “I got this.” The room burst into applause.

“That’s the spirit,” Jon said.

“Thank you,” Jessica said to Reza, holding out her hand. He shook it, smiling.

“Good luck,” he told her.

~*~

Ceasar Flickerman didn’t change from year to year, and as far as Jessica knew, hadn’t changed since the very first Hunger Games. The only exception was his hair and makeup, which changed in color every year. This year, he was in crimson red, which made him look a bit like he had gum disease all over his face. She sat next to Josh without looking at or acknowledging him, and waited for her turn.

She made herself pay attention to how everyone else presented themselves, trying to figure out who was the most likely to come after her. The Careers were a given. They had their pack, and they would try and weed out as much of the competition as possible before turning on one another. She didn’t know anything about the alliance Josh had made, and the girl from District Three didn’t give very much away- she had aloof down to a T. The last Career finished his interview with a bow and a flourish, and then it was her turn.

She did not fall on her way to the interview seat, which was her first big fear. Her second big fear was that she would forget everything that she’d planned on saying when she sat down. For a moment, that one came true, and her mind went completely blank the moment she sat down.

Then Flickerman started up, and it came flowing back.

“So how are you liking things in the Capitol?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s great,” Jessica replied. “I haven’t seen much of it yet, but the food is certainly great.”

There was a laugh from the crowd.

“Especially all the chocolate,” she added, once they’d died down a bit. “Though, I think I’d like that more if I didn’t keep hearing my Mom’s voice in my head, telling me that I need vitamins and nutrition.”

“Mothers,” Flickerman said knowingly. “Is she your only family back home?”

“No,” Jessica replied. There was a bit of talk about her family, and then her job training, which took up most of the interview.

“It’s a pretty fast-paced job actually,” Jessica said. “Especially if you’re trying to launch yourself into a supervisor position, like I was. You’ve constantly got to be directing everything and thinking about everything. Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, not having to do that these past few days has been really weird.”

“So your mind’s been on other things?” Flickerman asked.

“Well, of course,” Jessica said.

“Like what?”

She froze. That was not a question they’d covered. ‘What do you think about x?’ yes, they’d done a lot of those, but straight up ‘What are you thinking?’

She considered for a moment, her eyes darting to where Reza and Sarah were seated with the other stylists.

Ah, fuck it.

“Honestly?” she asked.

“Don’t keep me hanging,” Flickerman said.

“I’ve been thinking of how to kill people,” she replied, smiling sweetly.

There was a moment of stunned silence, and then the buzzer went off.

Flickerman laughed. “What an exit! Good luck to you, Jessica Williams of District Five!”

She didn’t fall on the way back to her seat either.

~*~

She couldn’t sleep.

She was trying, she really was, but she couldn’t sleep. She could barely make her eyes close.

“Knock, knock,” Jon said, poking his head in the door.

“It’s not time for me to go already, is it?” she asked.

“Nope,” Jon said. “I’m just checking on you.”

Jessica sighed, and tried closing her eyes again. “I can’t sleep.”

Jon stepped inside, closing the door behind him.

“None of us could,” Jon told her. “I hardly slept the entire time between my Reaping and my Games. Stephen didn’t sleep the first three days he was here, and only went to sleep after that because I stayed with him. Sam locked herself in the bathroom and cried practically the whole night before her Games, Aasif rolled himself into a blanket burrito and pretended to sleep, and Olivia spent the entire night debating trivia with Stephen. You’re doing just fine.”

“How did you do it?” Jessica asked, sitting up. “How did you win?”

“It was different for each of us.” Jon leaned back against the door. “You remember Olivia’s Games, right?”

“Yeah.” Olivia had been sexy all the way during her interview. It got her into the Career pack, where she showed how smart she could be, roping other tributes for her fellows to kill, waiting until everyone else was dead or dying, convincing one of the boys that they could make with her if only the others were around. They’d poisoned the other Careers. Then she’d stabbed the boy. The only other surviving tribute, a girl from District Eight, died of injuries she’d sustained from a pack of wild dogs less than an hour later.

“How about Aasif?” Jon asked.

“He strangled a lot of people,” Jessica said.

“He snuck up on a lot of people,” Jon corrected. “He’s a pretty low-key guy, so it came more naturally to him than it would have to Olivia. Or Sam. Sam just took everyone by storm. No one was expecting her to be such a direct fighter- she picked off half the Career pack at the bloodbath and disappeared with a good amount of supplies, having set fire to the Cornucopia.”

Jessica considered that.

“The Cornucopia is no longer made of flammable material,” Jon told her. “Similarly, none of the predators in the arena have been anything less than rabid since Stephen convinced a giant eagle to pick off the competition for him.”

“I heard about that,” Jessica said in surprise. “But I thought it was an urban legend. He didn’t actually ride the eagle, did he?”

“Yeah,” Jon told her. “That’s how he directed it to his competitors.”

“I’m not fucking with that,” Jessica told, flopping back down on the bed.

“No. You don’t have to. You’ve got a good, solid plan, just like Olivia, Sam, and Aasif did. And you’re going to win, just like they did.”

“How did you win?” Jessica asked.

Jon was silent for a moment. “Unexpectedly,” he said at last. “When I was Reaped, District Five didn’t have a lot of prospects. We didn’t even have a victor from before the Career Districts became Career Districts, like everyone else had. There was Kilborn, of course, but everyone agreed he’d been a fluke- and they all agreed that we- me and Madeleine Smithberg, that was the girl’s name- were going to die. Craig didn’t even bother mentoring us- Madeleine tried to spend some time with him, but, uh- he wasn’t interesting in helping her, let’s leave it at that. So, it was just us and Lizz Winstead, who was our escort at the time. She’s a Gamemaker now- we stayed in touch.”

There was something soothing about the way he was speaking. Jessica could keep her eyes closed now.

“It was difficult, because we both knew that, at best, only one of us would leave the arena alive. We made Lizz promise that she would get sponsors for both of us, and then try to convince whoever had supported the one who died first to transfer their support to the other. Then we parted ways. She tried Craig, at first, and then she locked herself up with tapes from the previous Games. I relied on Reza a lot- I was his first tribute, he and Sarah started their careers that year- and he got me through the interview and most of the my planning. I was fast- I played soccer- and I figured I could grab some of the better supplies before anyone caught me.

“I didn’t quite manage it. One of the Careers grabbed me just I got one of the bigger frame packs. I sort of clubbed him with it- he went down before he could more than graze my arm. I stepped on his hand while I was trying to get the pack on, which broke it. I ran as soon as I had the pack on my back- I found out later that one of the other Careers had finished him off, and that had sent the entire pack against one another. That helped me a lot. The first day they all fought among themselves until there was only one left, and then he died in the flood that night. It was- they had a really pretty arena that year. It was all mangroves, these really huge mangroves- for the first hour or so, I just thought the trees were just really twisty, or that the vines were really big. But then I began climbing, and I realized that I’d just been walking between the roots the entire time. I decided, just for the heck of it, to try to climb to the top. I never did get that far, but it was good for me that I tried- that night the first flood came through and submerged the bottom forty feet. The Cornucopia floated, I found out later, and…”

She fell asleep.

~*~

When she woke up again, Jon was gone and Reza was there, waiting with a simple shift for her to change in to. They went up to the roof, and a hovercraft appeared, a ladder descending. As soon as Jessica touched it, she froze. She tried to look to Reza for help, but couldn't move her head. She couldn’t even scream as she was lifted into the hovercraft.

“If you stay still, this will hurt less,” a man with a large needle told her. Stay still? She couldn’t do anything else!

The tracker went, and then suddenly she was released, stumbling almost into the floor. Reza appeared out of nowhere and caught her, and guided her into a room where an Avox stood by a breakfast spread.

“Can’t eat?” Reza asked, when she didn’t do more than stare.

“No,” Jessica said. She was barely not throwing up as it was.

“Have a seat,” he said. Jessica sat.

Reza returned with a glass of water and a smoothie topped with whipped cream.

“Try to drink, at least,” he said. “Sam swears by this smoothie.”

“Did she drink it before her Game?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Sarah was her stylist. We switch off every year, which of us gets the girl.”

Jessica swallowed a mouthful of smoothie and smiled. “This year’s one of your lucky years then?”

“I certainly think so.”

It didn’t take very long for them to reach the Launch Room, where Reza helped her figure out the complicated zipper and snap combination on her outfit. It was a very warm outfit, and she started sweating almost immediately.

“Cold weather arena?” she asked, taking her token and fastening it snuggly around her wrist.

“Looks like it,” Reza replied. “I’ll go get you another glass of water.”

“Thanks,” Jessica said.

“Move around, make sure that doesn’t restrict your range of motion.”

She did a few jumping jacks, and jogged in place.

“All good?”

“Yeah.”

She sat down, stripping off most of the outerwear. They sat in silence, until the announcement to prepare for launch came.

“You know what your plan is?” Reza asked as he helped her back into her outfit.

“Grab a backpack, run as far as possible, find a safe place and a source of water, start laying traps,” Jessica recited.

“Good,” Reza said. “Good luck.”

The cylinder descended, cutting off. Jessica held her breathe, closed her eyes, and gave it until the count of three before opening them again.

~*~

The arena was murky and dark- almost as dark as the launch tubes had been. It was cold too, so cold that for a minute she swore she could feel the air freeze in her lungs. All around her, she could hear the discontented murmurs of her fellow- of the competition.

She looked around a backpack, or a place to run- the Cornucopia was in the nadir of some pretty serious slopes, and she didn’t see any trees, or any plant life at all, everything was just rocks, how the hell was she supposed to make her traps if there wasn’t any-

“Ladies and gentlemen, let the Seventy-Third Hunger Games begin!”

She only had a minute- sixty seconds and counting. Her eyes darted around the arena, searching for something, anything, that was like what she’d planned.

There- that rock looked a little too square to really be a rock. A backpack? A box?

Well, she’d be finding out.

The gong rang out, and Jessica took off. All around her, the bloodbath erupted, and snow began to fall.


	2. It Makes An Even Face

Jessica grabbed the backpack and almost ran- but she stubbed her toe on the case that was beneath it. After the barest moment’s hesitation she scooped that up too and jumped over the rock. She crouched behind it, unnoticed for the time being, and got her bearings. Just in time too- the District One Girl flopped down over the rock, stabbed through the back with a spear and already dead.

Yeah, the sooner she was out of here the better. No one seemed to have noticed her yet, but it was only a matter of time. The longer she stayed near the Cornucopia, the more likely it was that she would be noticed, and noticed at a time when the Careers were looking to kill messily for the cameras. She needed to get to higher ground. There were bigger rocks not too far away, and through the snow and the murk, she could see something that looked like a path winding its way up from the Cornucopia. She slung the backpack over her shoulder, clutched the case tightly to her chest, and made a dash for it.

No one followed. Behind her there were all the sounds of a bloodbath going- fighting and killing- but no one was following her. She began to climb, the snow still falling serenely down from the sky.

~*~

She had been climbing for three hours before she let herself take a break. The snow hadn’t let up, but it hadn’t stopped falling either, still drifting lazily down. She could just make out the outline of what seemed to be the top of the cliffs. There were trees up there- at least the game makers hadn’t made the same mistake twice, and designed an arena without woods.

She sat back against the rocks, and began digging through the backpack. There was a sleeping bag line with a metallic foil that crinkled when she touched- hopefully something that would reflect back heat. There was a coil of rope she thought might be about fifty feet long, but was reluctant to check just now. There were also a pair of goggles- she put them on and found that they were much like infrared setting on the drones she used to repair the geothermal generator that was offshore. She took a moment to sweep over her surroundings: there were three other people-shaped red blots at varying heights on other paths, but most everyone still seemed to be at the Cornucopia- which itself was bathed in yellow- it must be heated. There were other, smaller, four-legged blots leaping nimbly from place to place- goats maybe? And at the top of the cliff, she could see the occasional glimpse of something.

Great. That was going to make getting firewood fun.

The pack also had an empty waterskin, a box of matches, a small pocketknife, and what felt like a solid brick of protein supplement cake. Not tasty, but at least she wasn’t in any immediate danger of starving- or dying of thirst, unless the snow had germs hibernating in it. Never mind- she opened the front flat of the pack to find a small first aid kit, in which there was a bottle of iodine.

Then the first cannon went off- the bloodbath had ended: two shots, three shots, four shots…thirteen shots, fourteen shots, _fifteen shots_.

The bloodbath generally killed slightly less than half the tributes, not more. But then again, generally you could run from the bloodbath fairly easily. She shivered, and swept her surrounding again. There were people climbing up from the Cornucopia now, checking for stragglers and supplies.

The case could wait. She shoved everything back in the backpack but her goggles, and began to climb again.

Eventually it got too dark to keep going- she was having trouble seeing where the rocks on the path were- so she started looking for something that might serve as shelter during the night. The sky lit up suddenly, the anthem blaring as the Capital seal was projected in the sky. By that light, Jessica was just able to make out a crack in the cliff face, starting about four feet off the path she was on. She checked for any heat signatures, and when she found none she pushed the case inside before climbing in herself.

She perched in the opening, watching the death recap. The District One Girl, the District Two Boy, both from Three, both from Six, the girl from Seven, both from Eight, the boy from Nine, the girl from Ten, both from Eleven, and both from Twelve.

That was- how did two of the Careers die? They almost always all made it through the first day. Had something attacked the Cornucopia after she left?

Well, that was good for her then. The less people there would be actively hunting her, the easier it would be for her to keep her head down and just wait everyone else out.

Speaking of which…

She opened up her pack, took out the waterskin, and began packing it with snow. What she was going to do after that she wasn’t entirely sure- it wasn’t like she could build a fire to melt it. Maybe between her body heat and her sleeping bag it would melt overnight, and she could purify it and have a drink tomorrow.

It was worth a try, at least. Waterskin full, she hauled herself fully into the cave, set up her sleeping bag, and settled down for the night, her goggles still in place. It took almost two hours for exhaustion to win over the chill that she could feel seeping into her bones even through her clothes and the bag.

~*~

It was lighter when she woke up, though not exactly bright. The water had melted though, and she put in two drops of iodine before packing her sleeping bag back up.

Then she stopped. Maybe she should leave the sleeping bag here- this was a good place to set up camp, mostly hidden from others and the elements alike. The bag would only slow her down. The pack itself could only slow her down- but no. Jon had told her that she should be read to move, and to keep food and water with her, which meant she needed the pack. And maybe the sleeping bag too- if she lost that she wasn’t going to last very long.

Deciding to put her decision off until later, she turned her attention to the case, which she still hadn’t opened. She slid back the locking mechanism and tried to make sense of what she saw inside. They looked like thick-shafted arrows, but there was no bow in the case, but rather another set of goggles- night vision, rather than infrared. Those would be helpful when she had to try and climb, but how they were supposed to help her shoot arrows she just didn’t know.

She picked one of the arrows up, and tried to see how they were supposed to work- maybe she was supposed to throw them? But the minute she tried the shaft extended, the blunt end hitting her sternum with more force than she thought was strictly necessary.

“Oh, for the love of- fuck!” she swore, dropping on the floor. The javelin seemed to be mocking her from where she’d dropped it.

At least she had an idea of what not to do. This called for breakfast.

She felt better once she’d eaten and drank a bit. Then she went to survey the area with the night vision goggles. It looked different, now that the heat signatures didn’t immediately point out where other living creatures were- but she could actually make out the landscape, despite the continued snow fall. Those we evergreen trees peaking over the top of the cliff face, and strange, smooth oval-shaped rocks were embedded along the cliff face and the paths, which she could loads more easily now. She took a moment to switch to heat vision- most of the Careers were still by the Cornucopia, which was still glowing with heat. She could see two people-shaped blots moving as a pair several hundred feet below her, and three other moving above them all by themselves. If she had to guess, she’d say that the pair were Careers, and the others the tributes who, like her, had run from the bloodbath. She wondered which of them was Josh- or if maybe he was still hiding.

There was a sudden, blood-curling scream and Jessica could make out two blots tumbling down the mountainside, one large and pale yellow, the other red and possibly human. Definitely human- the cannon sounded before Jessica could switch goggles. Whatever else had fallen was buried with her body in the resulting rock slide, so she didn’t know what it was- though she waited until the hovercraft had come to take the tribute away, she couldn’t catch a glimpse of it.

Until she could start littering the path to her cave with traps, she might as well be ready to move. She packed her sleeping bag in around the newly snow-packed waterskin, so that maybe it would melt while she was on the move. She piled it on top of the protein-brick and after a moment’s though, gingerly packed one of the still-collapsed javelins in. She’d use the one that was already extended as a walking stick- unless she needed a javelin, of course.

~*~

The going was much easier with the night-vision goggles, though they did make everything appear so bright that she was developing a headache. The last forty feet or so involved less walking up an incline and more actual climbing. She was completely out of breath by the time she reached the top, and completely unprepared for the sight that greeted her.

There were cabins dotted all the way along the forests. Three- no, four- of them even had smoke coming out of their chimneys. Had someone gotten up here before her and set those up as decoys, perhaps? Last night, long enough ago that their prints had faded from the snow?

She couldn’t see anyone. Not a single soul. Not even a sign of a single soul. After a moment of unease, she resolved to ignore it in favor of finding the wood she needed: dead wood, dry needles, and kindling for a fire, and saplings- or better yet, some kind of evergreen willow- for trap camouflage. She could build plenty of things with hard wood, especially if she was willing to sacrifice her rope, but it everyone saw it coming, there wasn’t much of a point- also, getting actual logs was going to be difficult without an ax.

She collected a pile of firewood, figured that firewood didn’t need to be pretty, and dropped it down the side of the cliff on the path down to the cave for her to collect later. She’d just managed to deposit five armfuls of wood and was going back for a sixth when something white and terrifying swung down from the trees, nearly landing right on top of her.

Forgetting all about her javelin, she ran for the cliff, barely managing to have the presence of mind not to fling herself off the edge, instead aiming for a ledge that was ten feet down. The creature, whatever it was, howled in fury, and Jessica could hear answering calls rebounding around the arena.

But it seemed like the creatures were reluctant to life the clifftops, so she eventually caught her breath, and began climbing down the cliff face, and then moving the wood into her cave. It took most of the rest of the day, and she spent what time there was left in it refilling and purifying the waterskin, and collecting smaller rocks to camouflage the entrance with. By the time she felt secure enough to rest, her stomach was growling up a storm, and she was sweating.

As the death recap played- it was the boy from Seven who’d taken a dive off the cliff today- she wondered if there was any help from sponsors coming- probably not just yet. Maybe later- big sponsors for five tended to come late, after more than half the tributes were dead.

Well- that had happened already. Hell, she was in the top eight! But she thought it might not count if so many had died in the first day, ignoring the possibility that. She set up a ring of stones and began to build a fire, trying to blow on it in such a way that didn’t light her hair up. Then she settled in for another chunk of protein. She’d be proud of herself for managing to not succumb to the temptation of lunch, but she was still feeling well-fed enough that protein bricks weren’t really something she wanted to eat.

She ate the night’s portion as the fire finally began to burn, and was wrapping the brick back up for later when she realized that the smooth rock embedded in the cliff had sprouted a crack, and the crack had an eye.

She screamed, throwing herself out of the cave and onto the path below. The creature hissed, unfurling itself. Jessica scrambled down along the path as it crashed out, spitting and hissing as it thrashed around looking for her. She didn’t bother looking back as she ran, but after a few minutes the panic receded enough for her to realize that she wasn’t being followed. She hid behind a rock- one that was crumbling, not smooth- and felt around her neck. She still had the heat vision goggles- she put them on, squinting up the hill.

The creature was still by the cave, scrambling, trying to get back inside. She watched it for a while, and eventually realized that its heat signature was dulling the longer it was outside.

She thought back on what little she managed to see of it before running. Maybe it was a reptile- cold blooded. Maybe it hibernated during the winter, only to wake up when temperatures were high enough for it to function.

So it would probably freeze to death before she did. Probably- she couldn’t see the fire from this angle, so it was possible that it would last longer if it managed to make it back inside. Which it should be able to- how else did it get in her cave otherwise?

She just had to wait it out. She pulled her arms inside her sleeves and settled in to do just that.

~*~

Somehow, she’d managed to fall asleep, jerking awake when the howling of the cliff-top creatures began. She flailed, planted herself into a snow bank, and just when she surfaced, the howling was cut off by the sound of cannon fire. She supposed one of the tributes must have made it all the way to the top last night after all. She checked her goggles, and looked for the cave. It didn’t look like the creature was still living, so she picked her way back up to the cave through the snow that was now over a foot deep.

It hadn’t managed to get back inside the cave. The creature certainly looked dead, half curled back in upon itself and not registering any heat signature at all. Then again, it’s not like it was putting off heat when she thought it was a rock, so maybe she should just not assume anything for the moment.

She took a look around the cave. There was less damage than she’d feared. The case with the javelins had been thrown all over the cave along with her firewood, gloves, and scarves. The waterskin had spilled, but not burst, and the night vision goggles seemed to be okay. The sleeping bag has claw marks that oozed stuffing, but was mostly okay, and the brick was merely squished. It was all still usable.

She put her gloves and night vision goggles back on, picked up the nearest javelin, and jumped down from the entrance, driving the point between its ribs- more through luck than through skill, though hopefully any sponsors watching wouldn’t be able to tell that. The creature didn’t so much as twitch, so after a few tugs, she pulled the javelin free and went back into her cave to look for one of her sturdier pieces of wood to use as leverage- maybe she should have tried to butcher it, but then again, she didn’t even know where to start butchering a giant rock lizard. For all she knew, it was poisonous. She tipped in over the edge: it flopped down the cliff side, managing to roll off of each level it hit until it slumped against the Cornucopia, causing the Careers to pile out of it, brandishing their weapons.

It was a shame that it _wasn’t_ only sleeping she mused as she switched to heat vision goggles to better see around the arena. The Cornucopia was still giving off a heat signature- maybe it would have woken up and then tried to eat the remaining Careers.

She stopped for a moment, before turning around to get a good look at the smooth, oval rock twenty feet to her left. And there, down the path, there were two right next to each other.

“I know how I’m going to win!” she shouted, and then clapped her hands over her mouth. But the Careers didn’t appear to have heard her.

Good. This would work better with the element of surprise.

~*~

She almost went to the nearest rock and did it right then and there, but she made herself stop and think for a moment. If she did it now, she effectively cut the Careers off from the Cornucopia- unless they killed the rock lizard- at which point she could probably send more down. She doubted the lizards would leave the Cornucopia when it was the only available source of heat.

But. Still. There were still two non-Career tributes, including possibly Josh, and that wasn’t- she couldn’t-

She took a deep breath, and refocused herself. The point of the matter was, that if the rock lizard didn’t kill all the Careers, they would start climbing and come after her, and she was not ready for that. She needed to plan this carefully.

First things first: she ate almost half of her remaining protein brick, pack the waterskin back up with snow, and cleaned her cave back up. She dallied a bit, wondering whether or not she should put the sleeping bag between the fire and the exit, so she could leave quickly if the fire got out of control, or put the fire between her sleeping bag and the entrance, so anyone who found her would have to walk around it first. She eventually went with the latter: fire would probably be painful, but unlike the Careers it wasn’t going to make her death as long and drawn out as possible in order to appease the crowd.

It was still snowing, and a wind was brewing. That was going to make climbing difficult, even if she did sacrifice the rope to help her up the last leg of the trip. She could, given enough wood, make a deadfall trap over her cave (probably), though sacrificing the rope meant that she would have to forgo all snares. She might be able to make more traps- it depended on how much wood she could carry down, and how much wood she needed to keep warm at night.

And to get wood, she needed, to get to the trees. And to get to the trees, she needed to be able to deal with whatever it was that was living up there.

Thankfully, she had an idea of how to handle that.

~*~

She watched carefully, first through the heat vision, then through night, to make sure that the coast was clear. It was. She darted out from the tree to the clutch of smooth rocks- hopefully actually smooth lizards- and set the kindling down at its base. She lit it up, and ran for the trees.

Sure enough the tree beasts, looking something like white shaggy bears with long tails and thumbs, came to investigate to smoke. And sure enough, the rock lizards came alive, hissing and spitting and keeping them occupied.

Jessica hurriedly chopped down three smallish trees, and dumped them down on to the path. She took a few saplings next, and then some dead wood: and even though hours must have passed, the beasts were all occupied with one another.

She got curious, and then, deciding that she wasn’t going to get a better chance, picked up the javelin she’d discarded yesterday and headed for the cabins.

There weren’t any smoking chimneys today. Jessica thought that might mean that whoever was killed this morning must have been the tribute who was up here before her. The thought made her somewhat uneasy- she checked back at the clutch she’d set the fire up at, just in time to catch another lizard come to and attack one of the already wounded tree beasts. Yeah, she would be good for a while.

She stepped inside the cabin, checking around for anything she could use- there wasn’t anything immediately apparent, but there were cabinets on the far side of the cabin that she should check. She stepped inside, closing the door behind her.

The fireplace immediately lit up, through the room into light that blinded her. She cursed, tore off the glasses and stumbled forward as the floor opened up beneath her, and she dropped down a good ten feet.

She landed awkwardly. Something in her ankle creaked and then she was sprawled out on her face, struggling to breath.

After a few moments she managed to sit back up and take stock of herself by the light of the fireplace. She was going to have an ugly bruise on her collarbone where the goggles had dug in, the goggles themselves were cracked if still workable, and it hurt to point her ankle, but not too badly and it seemed capable of supporting her weight. Nothing terrible- not the worst that could have happen.

Now she just needed to figure out how to get herself back up.

Thankfully, the trap door had swung downwards, and she was able to jump up and grab onto to the handle that dangled down from it. From there it was a matter of swinging herself up high enough to reach the floor, which she managed, and then clambering back up onto solid ground.

The cabinets were empty. Of course.

Deciding that she might as well call it a bust, she checked around outside for any lingering tree beasts. The rock-lizards appeared to have all been killed, but almost every tree beast-shaped blotch she came across was still busy by the clutch- eating, she guessed. So maybe the lizards weren’t poisonous- that was good to know.

She limped towards the cliff, picked her way over the wood she she’d gathered until she reached the saplings, which weren’t going to keep supple for very much longer now that they’d been cut. She made it back to her cave, camouflaged herself back in, started a fire, had a bit of a drink, and despite all her good intentions, she fell asleep and missed the death recap entirely.

~*~

She forced herself to eat only a quarter of the remaining brick the next morning, and then spent much of the rest of the day trying to make herself some snow shoes. It was becoming nearly impossible to move around on the snow, and she was going to need as much mobility as she could. Apparently her attempts at craftsmanship weren’t captivating enough for the Capitol, as there was an earthquake at what she thought was maybe midday.

The rumbling and shaking didn’t do much more than frighten her- the front of her cave was snowed in, but it took less than an hour to dig herself out. Half of the cliff across the Cornucopia had collapsed in on itself, but she hadn’t heard any cannons, so unless they’d sounded during the actual earthquake, she didn’t think it had hurt the Careers either. What was a problem was the path, which was now covered in a good extra three feet of snow.

She hadn’t gone out to get her wood yet. Maybe she would have been shaken off the cliff if she had- or maybe she would have actually had her wood.

After a few minutes she resigned herself to not having anything better to do, and went back to trying to make her snow shoes. She managed it just in time for the anthem to play- with no deaths, so she hadn’t missed anything at all. Her firewood had all but run out, she had no food to speak of, and her chances of getting her hard-earned wood were pretty slim, but at least she’d managed snow shoes.

She caved and ate another bite of the brick, and fell back asleep before she could feel hungry again.

The next day dawned bright and early: the snow had stopped, and the sun had come out. Jessica wasted no time in trying out her new shoes- she needed food, and they only available source to be found was in the goat things that we hopping around the cliff face.

Unfortunately for her, her snow shoes were really loud, crunching with every step she took. She barely caught a glimpse of them, and couldn’t exactly throw her javelin with enough force to kill them anyway. If she wanted food- which, duh, she did- she was going to have to get it with a snare. And if she wanted to build a snare- which, again, duh- she needed to get her rope and supplies back.

When the sun set, and the snow started to develop an ice sheet, she headed back up to her cave. She was cold, she was hungry, she was tired and sore and-

There was a small crunch as a box landed on the snow outside her cave. She stared at it for a moment, and then, as it started to slide down the slope, scrambled to pick it up.

She hauled herself into the entrance of her cave, and eagerly looked inside. It wasn’t anything fancy- it was another pack, with some beef jerky, about three pounds of dried fruit, a coil of wire, and a collapsible shovel- but it was enough.

Someone out there thought that she would make it. So she was going to make it.

~*~

She spent the next day digging up and dragging her wood down to her cave, and then sorting it out into firewood, levers, and traps. She was helped by the fact that it stopped snowing, the sun making a brief appearance and starting to melt the snow. Not wanting to take any chances, she packed snow around all the rock lizards she could see.

When the sun went down, and the snow started again, she called it quits and retreated back to her cave. She spent some time with some of the smaller, greener branches, and managed to half-weave the parachute in to make a cover to camouflage the entrance to her cave. She eyes the branches thoughtfully, and entertained a brief fantasy of finding some way of making a kind of pit trap, so the Careers would all fall to their deaths, but then brought herself back down to reality. A) She didn’t think that was possible B) Even if it was, it would take more wood that she had and C) She really needed this to be over sooner rather than later.

She looked guiltily at the food that she was at least trying to not eat too quickly. Yeah, the sooner she was done here the better.

However, she didn’t really have a chance to do much the next day, as that day the arena became flooded with giant cats.

The first one she saw was just a little too big to fit inside her cave. Its front paw flailed, claws extended, as it tried to reach her, and she tried to find some way of killing it without being hit. She tried throwing her javelin, only to have it batted away. She opened the case and rooted around for another one, and then remembered how much force they extended with.

She braced the butt end of the javelin against the cave wall, found the small depression that would trigger it, and let going. The javelin extended, and shot itself into the cat’s mouth.

The cat screamed, deafeningly, and while it was trying vainly to retreat, Jessica picked her first javelin up again, and stabbed in through the neck. The cat died after that, still lodged in the entrance. Jessica slumped against the wall, panting.

She could still here the screaming of the other tributes, and the cats. In particular she could hear one girl screaming continuously, until she could almost convince herself that those weren’t human screams. What other girls were left in the arena? Herself, Two, Four, and Nine?

It was probably the girl from Nine. She wasn’t a Career- and she was what, thirteen years old?

The screaming didn’t stop for hours. Jessica stayed where she was until it had, and then stayed for a little while longer until she couldn’t ignore how stale the air was getting. Then she pushed the cat out into the snow.

She remembered the get her javelins back, and then looked at the carcass for a moment. She knew that she was supposed to butcher the animal now- use the fur as a blanket, eat the meat. But the training station had only covered things like deer and rabbits- and she was pretty sure her dinky little pocketknife wasn’t going to cut through all that fur anyway.

Still, that didn’t mean she couldn’t use it. She arranged the dead cat so that it look, at first glance, like it was sleeping. Then, as she still seemed to have about half a day and the snow had stopped again, set about trapping the path up to her cave until the death recap began to play.

It had been the girl from nine. That left her, four Careers… and Josh.

~*~

She stalled the next day. She’s not ashamed to admit it. She built the traps she planned to on the path, hoping the snow wouldn’t start again and set them off. Then she built a deadfall over her cave entrance, just in case. She wedged her long sticks in behind the rock lizards, and then she stalled, using the excuse of her aching arms and back- not to mention her ankle- as a reason to stop.

She didn’t want to kill Josh. She didn’t want to kill anyone, but she really, really didn’t want to kill Josh. He was from the Spits, where the Victor’s Village was, and she’d have to see them. How could she live near them if she’d killed their son?

It’s not like she thought that the lizards would kill Josh- she was aiming for the Cornucopia, where the Careers were, after all- but if that killed all of them, then it would just be the two of them left. Then she would have to kill him, if she wanted to go home.

But then again, if it couldn’t be her, didn’t she want it to be Josh? If he won, her family would still get the extra supplies- they wouldn’t have another tight winter like last year. And there was no guarantee that she would even have to face Josh- the cats could come back, or another avalanche. She wouldn’t necessarily be what killed him- and he didn’t have to kill her.

The anthem played- there had been no deaths to recount that day. She switched to her heat-vision goggles and the arena darkened: the Cornucopia still glowed yellow- not much heat, maybe not even enough heat.

It wouldn’t be any better if it started snowing again. She wouldn’t be either- she was almost out of fire wood.

Before she could over think it again, she pushed down on the lever and sent the first lizard sliding down to the Cornucopia. Then the second, third, fourth, and fifth- the last one narrowly missed hitting one of the Careers as they left the Cornucopia, looking for the source of the commotion. She picked her way back to her cave, checking every so often to see if there was any progress. There was nothing until she’d made her way back to the entrance, and then, just as she was climbing back in, there was howling, screaming, and a canon shot.

She turned around- one of the lizards had stopped hibernating, and taken out one of the tributes. As she watched, two more lizards stirred- and the Careers began scrambling back towards the Cornucopia as the lizards closed in.

Of course, the lizards didn’t just want the tributes: they needed the heat. They needed to get into the Cornucopia too.

It took almost an hour for the Careers to figure that out, at which point two others had died. Or maybe it wasn’t the remaining Career who figured it out- because it wasn’t one person who tore out of the Cornucopia, but two- one with a limp and clutching their side, but still easily keeping pace with the other.

The other had to be Josh.

~*~

She tried to sleep that night, she really did, but she couldn’t.

First she was really mad- he’d formed an alliance _with the Careers_ \- but it didn’t last long. It was a winning strategy- Olivia had used it- and he was just trying to stay alive, same as she was. Then she just could sleep at all, period- every time there was a noise she would jerk awake, convinced that Josh and the Career had found her.

She spent the next day waiting for something- anything- to happen. Nothing did- she watched the arena avidly, looking for human-shaped red blots, but there were none to be found. She went to sleep uneasily after the death replay- the lizards had gotten the boy from One, and the girls from Two and Four. That left her with the boy from Four and Josh.

She tried to remember what she knew about the boy from Four. What was his name? Tash- no, Tosh. Maybe. Probably. He’d played the interview as arrogant, and he was a Career. That was all she knew about him.

That wasn’t very helpful.

The next day she was woken up by the sound of one of her traps going off. There was a yelp of surprise, and then the sound of cursing.

They were close. If that was her first trap, then they were about half a mile down the path from her- almost thirty feet straight down. She listened, trying to make out the noises of the two boys hissing at each other.

“-hell do you think is-”

“-she’ll only keep sending stuff-”

“-why am I-”

“-we stand a better chance of-”

The sounds faded.

Jessica knew she had maybe an hour before they made it up to her. Maybe more- it would depend on whether or not any of her traps worked.

She should probably not plan on any of her traps working- which left the deadfall. Which meant waiting until they were right outside her cave.

She took a look around, and realized that the cat corpse was in the wrong position for what she wanted to do- it should be up the path from the entrance, blocking her opponents way. She worked as quietly as she could, pushing and pulling until the corpse was just past the entrance. She tried to arrange tits frozen limbs in something approaching a natural position, gave up, and threw some snow over them and the area in front of her cave to make it less obvious that she’d set it up.

Then she retreated to her cave. She made sure the fire was really out, her waterskin was as full as it could be, and settled in to wait, her javelin close at hand.

She also ate. It was the first time she had to force herself to do so since she entered the arena.

It was nearly midday before Josh and the Career arrived. She watched from cracks in the entrance, one hand stretched up to the trigger of the deadfall.

The boys were throwing rocks towards the corpse.

“I think it might be dead,” Tosh said.

“If you want to check yourself, be my guest,” Josh replied.

Tosh moved towards the carcass, and kicked at it.

“It’s frozen,” he said flatly.

“So let’s move on then.”

Josh moved right in front of the cave- right in the path of the deadfall. Tosh was still standing there. If she pulled the trigger now, it would all be over.

She could do it. She could absolutely do it. Any moment now she would do it…

“Wait.”

“What?”

“There aren’t any tracks. We could see tracks all the way up from the first trap we came across- but they stop here.”

“So?”

“So, that means she’s still here, hiding.”

Jessica’s heart leapt into her throat. _Now or never_ , she thought.

She pulled out the trigger, and the deadfall slid down, rocks and logs collapsing on top of the tributes just as Tosh reached for the entrance to her cave.

~*~

There was only one canon shot that fired out.

The second shot could have been lost in the crash, of course- but the fact of the matter was that she only heard one canon, and one of the boys could still be alive. The more time went by without any hovercraft descending and taking her out of here, the more likely it seemed.

When the air started to go stale, she roused herself to dig herself out once again. It was slow, exhausting work, and it often seemed that when she managed to make one hole the rocks and branches would shift and close it again. It took hours, with breaks to try and keep a hole open for her the breathe through.

Finally, just as the sun was starting to set, she managed to make a hole big enough to fit through. She lay, panting, half on top of the rock slide.

The anthem played. Tosh’s face was projected into the sky. Beneath the rubble, Josh lay, buried up to waist.

It started snowing. Jessica hauled herself up, went back into the cave, and got her javelin.

He didn’t look like he was alive. He looked dead, like a corpse. That made it easier.

The canon sounded, and she limped a short distance away to wait for the hovercraft to arrive.

~*~

She wasn’t especially injured. Mostly she just needed to sleep it off- the time it took for the Capitol doctors to erase her bruises and undoing the swelling in her ankle was less than the time it took to get back to the Training Center. An Avox brought her a drink- the smoothie Sam recommended.

That’s all it took for her to break down in tears.

“Oh no,” John Hodgeman cooed. “Don’t cry. You’ve won. You’re a victor.”

But she couldn’t stop. If anything, she cried harder.

Eventually, someone came up behind her and injected something into her neck, and she slumped forwards in unconsciousness.

~*~

She stopped crying before the review of the Games. That was good- the look Reza picked out for her wouldn’t have gone well with red, puffy eyes. This dress also looked something like a suit, but it was different, more severe and much more somber. It looked less like the suits the Gamemakers wore, and more like the one Mayor Arpaio wore to his predecessor’s funeral, only with more purple.

As with every year, the entire year’s Game was whittled down to three hours, and given something of a narrative structure. This year, the story seemed to be that she and Josh were having some kind of grudge match. Their interviews were spliced together to suggest that they were taking swipes at one another, the way they juxtaposed shots of the two of them working their way through made it seem like they were gunning for each other. Even the way she fell for the pit trap in the cabin made it look like she’d been out hunting for him.

She got to see a lot of what Josh’s strategy had been. The group of kids he’d formed an alliance with all rushed for the Careers, and the girl from Eleven had even managed to take two of the Careers down before Tosh got her. Josh had had to do some fast talking to now be gutted immediately, but he managed it, and he managed it for well over a week, as the Careers waited, relatively safe and warm in the Cornucopia, while she made her way around the clifftop forests and the paths surrounding her cave. There was a lot more of Josh than there was of her- the Careers had had drama of their own, of course, but seeing as there was no footage of the inside of her cave she was pretty sure that they just didn’t have any footage of her nearly spearing herself with her javelin.

She would have almost preferred that they showed that. It was embarrassing, but it was her. She had no idea who the vindictive woman that stood over Josh’s body, seemingly savoring his helplessness, was at all.

President Snow didn’t seem to notice that conflict when he crowned her.

The party was a blur of people wanting their picture taken with her, wanting to congratulate her on her victory, and then she was back at the Training Center, too jazzed up to sleep no matter how important sleep was. Eventually she gave up, and went to look for something to eat.

Stephen was awake- not that she noticed at first. She only noticed when he reached out and grabbed her by the wrist.

“You’re very pretty,” he said, reeking of alcohol.

“You’re very drunk,” she said, trying to pull herself.

“Yes, but that’s not the problem.”

“It is from where I’m standing.”

“Oh,” Stephen said, staring down at where his fingers were wrapped around her wrist. “Don’t even think about that. My husband is notoriously jealous and you have a boyfriend.”

“Hus- I don’t have a boyfriend,” Jessica replied.

“Yes, you do,” Stephen said. “Or you should before the interview tomorrow. Or tell Flickerman that there’s a boy you like back in Five that you haven’t had the courage to ask out.”

“I don’t-”

“Then say it’s a girl,” Stephen said. “Don’t be single. No one wants you to be single.”

And on that bewildering note, he got up and toddled back to his room, leaving behind a wine bottle for Jessica to trip over.

~*~

“Are you okay?” Jon asked before her interview with Flickerman was due to begin.

Jessica shrugged.

“Do you want a hug?” he asked.

“Sure,” Jessica replied, and let herself be hugged. It was kind of awkward, because she was a lot taller than he was.

“Seriously, what happened?” Jon asked quietly.

“Stephen gave me some weird advice,” Jessica admitted.

“Was it about baby carrots?”

“…it was about dating.”

“Ah,” Jon said, pulling away. “You should listen to him then. _Really_.”

Jessica frowned, but then Flickerman was calling her over, and she had to sit down and act like she wasn’t afraid that she was still in danger somehow.

**Author's Note:**

> I couldn't think of a title, so searched around for poetry about winter, and came across John Updike's "January". Then I couldn't think of a chapter title, so I searched for poetry about reaping. The chapter title comes from William Wordsworth's "The Solitary Reaper".
> 
> If anything Daily Show related sounds familiar to you, than that's probably because I back-tracked through Jessica William's blog before writing this. Similarly, her parade outfit it from [this](http://i.imgur.com/km9nXu3.jpg) picture, and her interview outfit is based partially on the fact that she's wearing a lavender shirt in her Daily Show bio picture.


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